The good news was I found a route out, if the heat can escape so can I.
The bad news was that due to the heat from the magma rolling down below it would take a lot of energy.
Mana surrounds me, I began to take deep breaths the energy drawing into my body replacing the need for oxygen.
My organs react by tensing up and my heart racing.
I could no longer see as mana flooded my vision but I could feel everything my energy brushed against leaving little use for my eyes.
I look like a glowing white flame in the dark ready to launch myself in the air when I suddenly stop.
I was struck with an idea, the energy dissipated and I began walking back.
The reason I came down here in the first place was thay I didn't want the fact that I could use mana to be known.
Four thousand five hundred miles is a long way, if they continued at the same pace every day it would take over a year.
I had plenty of time to either catch up or make it all the way west myself.
The latter seemed more likely, it would take a while but I have time and I could fly.
Even if I caught up it would raise more questions than anything.
The more time that goes on the more believable whatever story I come up with I can even say I condensed my mana core.
From the geology information and lore of old everything past the desert is speculation but I am confident in my survivability.
It's a shame I wouldn't get lessons on mana but most of what she said sounded like superstition to me.
It was also suspicious how they treated us, didn't they need mages to fill there ranks?
They never talked about anything that made sense to me only gods and lore.
I took off all my clothes placing them back at the entrance.
I can catch up at anytime, when would I ever be in a cave with all these mana stones?
Fully naked I walk back into the tunnel dragging a large mana stone behind me.
With no energy surrounding me or circulating inside, my eyes dry and I had to shut them quickly.
I feel the heat, inside and out
My skin starts blistering and burning, sitting down I meditate with the mana stones.
The feeling of every breath scorching my insides while a rush of mana started the healing process can only be defined as excruciating.
With small burns like electric burns the healing process felt like an irate itch but right now it felt like my organs are falling out.
I could compare it to the pain of mending broken bones but even that was usually concentrated in one area.
I take my mind out of the pain and dig in, I was going to be here a while.
I spend the rest of the day like this burning and healing repeatedly until my hunger gnaws at me.
Grabbing a large slice of the Um I fly directly upwards from the volcano smashing into the brittle and cracked earth.
I drive upwards for nearly a mile before I break through to the surface.
I was met by the night sky, taking in a deep breath of the dry air I look down.
The sight of a cracked and dry patch of desert looked like a scab the earth just couldn't heal.
I roast the Ums meat eating it in one sitting not minding the slime that wouldn't go away even after nearly burning it.
Needless to say I went searching for a watering hole immediately after eating.
I knew I could find one underground I had seen Alia do it plenty of times.
It took me the rest of the night to find an underground spring nearly ten miles away and a mile deep.
When I finally found it after searching all night I drank enough for six grown men.
And so, it began.
The cycle of burning myself, healing and eating.
The Ums meat was disgusting but the benefit of the slime was that it didn't go bad but stank something unholy, 'slimy yet satisfying' I joked to myself.
A part of my mana sense was always active, awakening me at the hint of movement underground.
When I sensed Um I killed it, luckily they were huge growing out to twenty feet so I had plenty of sustenance.
They tunneled through the earth slowly, secreting a foul odor from there mouth.
The worst thing was since it was mating season they would secrete it out of there slimy skin as well.
I boiled the small legs in water and cracked them to find the juiciest lobster like red meat, I moaned out loud while eating it.
Alia and Rumi would never use precious water like this.
I would kill for a cold beer in a cold glass, hell I might consider selling an organ for a soda.
I learned a new trick, using mana to shut off my pain receptors.
I figured it out when I was using mana vision to inspect the carcass of the Um.
When I added to a lot of energy to a certain part of the brain while using mana vision different things would happen.
Adding pressure to the frontal lobe would make my reaction time faster and seemed to slow my perception of the world I called it 'fast thinking'.
Adding pressure to the middle portion would numb my senses but slow my reaction time.
I felt nothing when I did this and with enough pressure, I could blind myself.
Finally adding pressure to the rear portion of my brain allowed me to adjust mana vision how I saw fit making the shades of energy I saw lighter or brighter.
I was hesitant to explore the boundaries of these new discoveries, I didn't want to kill myself by accident.
I have no worries about mana stone as I could dig a huge mana stone over and syphon it so recovery was never an issue.
Without mana circulating It was hard to walk through the tunnel.
I would stay a few yards away from the crevice that lead to the magma.
Developing rapidly, I make it the rest of the way into the tunnel to look down at the wide crevice.
It's almost two hundred yards with the volcano down below the magma rolling.
It has been a month since I found this area the soot on my face hadn't been washed in weeks.
I sent my energy down scanning the area and found another opening the size of a small house further down.
I jump down protecting myself as I do and taking the mana crystal with me, slowly I get accustomed to the heat and begin my meditation again.
I lost track of time the heat becoming a comfortable cocoon.
I spent a whole three days down in that volcano before coming out, my body was reborn, my skin was smooth oily, my hair burnt to a crisp only patches remained.
Not a flicker of mana could be sensed outside of my body, my pores are opened all the way.
Opening my eyes I stand and fly into the night sky.
An abundant supply of mana stones doesn't beat being able to breath fresh air.
The feeling of being alive made me tremble, I am overcome with appreciation, a tear paints my cheek.
It was an emotional moment for me.
The neat little boxes where I placed all the pain and hopelessness from the past eons opened up as I stared at the stars.
I went through different phases of crying, laughing and extreme loneliness.
Like a rock I let all these emotions wash over me and recede like the ocean waves crashing against a tall cliff, I felt them and let them go.
After many days of meditation a black goo fought it's way out of my lungs even attempting to go back in before surrounded by red energy and forced out of my body I incinerate it instantly.
Another orgasmic rush swept through my body from my head to the bottom of my toes creating cyclones of life force that this time wasn't devoured by my body immediately.
I looked like a red flame floating in the sky the red energy dancing around me before slowly subsiding filling every cell.
I take my sweet time to rest in the clouds before heading back down.
I want to explore this area a bit more before setting out to the mage association.
It has been a little under two months at this point and they are far in front of me.
I can use any excuse to make up for what happened here they didn't care if I died and wouldn't care if I lived.
'So is the life of the Olim' I thought to myself.
I much preferred it this way, a visual indicator for people to leave me alone.
Landing on the cavern below the cliff I head further in, it lead downwards just like the others but this one slanted up after some time.
I traveled for a mile before I came to an opening with twinkling lights coming from it.
As soon as I get close the light I emitted from my hand flickered, my jaw nearly hit the floor.
It looks like I am looking at the night sky because of all the milky white mana stones shining.
The huge cavern extending almost two whole miles across before cutting off with no other route, a dead end that goes further down.
Send my mana sense downwards using the energy in the mana stones as a conduit I go down.
I was starting to notice less and less mana stones, after a mile down there where even less mana stones for me to bounce my energy off of.
After a certain point in the beginning of the of the second mile I had to stop, sensing nothing but ore.
I am about to retract my mana when another energy brushed up against mine.
It felt extremely familiar, so familiar that it made me hesitate and not run.